For We Are Bound By Symmetry
by politiksandprose
Summary: "The slow beating disappears from under the pad of her thumb, and she tells him she loves him as she hears the EMT call his time of death. And she means it; she loves him. Not just as her oldest friend, or her closest friend, but she loves him. She loves Christian and saying the words out loud feel like a home-coming." A/U One-Shot. (spoiler alert - Christian lives.)


**a/n: hey everyone! just a heads up - not only is this my first 50 shades fic, but it is also severely AU! It'll make sense as you go along. hopefully. :) **

**disclaimer: i do not own these characters.**

* * *

He dies on the morning of her wedding day.

They can't be more than a minute away from the ceremony sight – a small, quaint church nearly an hour outside of Seattle – and her stomach is already churning with feelings Ana can't even begin to define when all the laughter coming from the front seat of the car dies and Kate slams on her break. Ana watches, her brained too muddled with all the sudden movement and noises to understand just what's happening yet as she sees Mia's hands reach out to hold on to the dashboard, a string of obscenities filtering through her delicate voice in a way that's almost comical.

Her eyes feel out of focus and she keeps blinking, as if the momentary lapses of darkness _blinking_ provides will somehow make the large, black SUV disappear. The same large, black SUV she'd thought would never even dent if suffering a collision. The same large, black SUV that she'd sat in with her friend – her best friend since before he could even calculate what 2+2 meant – too many times to count.

The same large, black SUV that lies overturned on the road, glass carelessly littering the road, obliterated beyond recognition.

She's climbing out of the backseat of Kate's car before her brain can catch up with her movements, and she can hear Kate incoherently trying to spew information to the 9-1-1 operator, Mia's panicked voice trying to help her form sentences from the passenger seat, although understandably, with much more difficulty as the sobs rake through her body at an alarming speed. The sirens are already loud though, piercing her ear along with another blaring, annoying noise and she wonders why her best friends are wasting their time in the car calling 9-1-1 when the EMTs are already here.

She feels a hand on her shoulder before she can get closer to the car – the damned black SUV that's chilling her heart to the core – and she's praying in her head that she'll find Christian when she turns around but she doesn't. It's Elliot instead, and the noise from before is becoming louder and louder until she can feel it in her pulse. It takes her a fraction of a second to realize the second noise that's harmonizing with the sirens of the ambulance is a wail coming from Mia as she climbs out of the car; a shockingly loud, heart-wrenching wail that's only further accentuated by the look of pure agony in her eyes.

She forces her eyes away from Mia and wildly, blindly runs to the car, her heart beating too erratically in her chest. There's a man in a muddy yellow jacket hunched down in front of the car, telling Christian that it'll all be alright. "You'll be out of there in just a second, alright son?" the older man says, "Just keep holding on for me."

Except it's not Christian in the car; it's one of his security personnel's whose face she only vaguely remembers and she's hoping against hope that maybe he'd already dropped Christian off at the church, that maybe he was just going to look for parking now.

And then she spots him; the familiar deliciously unruly hair, the perpetually tan skin she's always been just slightly jealous of, lying just fifteen feet from her. His white shirt and tuxedo suit is streaked with thick red liquid and as she gets closer, she can see where a large, jagged chunk of glass is thrust painfully into his side.

Her hands trembling uncontrollably, she reaches to his neck and feels around for a pulse, only letting out a comically loud sigh of relief when she feels a faint beating under her fingers. He's alive. Thank God, _he's alive_.

"Christian, wake up. Come on, wake up." She tries to say, but her voice can't sound louder than a whisper that's fading into the background of the sirens and wails – and _God_, Mia is still wailing. She shakes Christian's body, her fingers still pressed against his pulse that's becoming fainter and fainter, but she can't let go. She can't. But the unsteady beating under the pad of her thumb is fading and she doesn't know how to stop it from stopping, until it's already gone. She screams his name, and she feels the blood from his suit seeping into her too-puffy white dress as she clutches him to her, unable to let go even as the paramedics and EMT try to take him from her.

And then she finally let's go and her head hits the concrete painfully and she can't seem to stop her lips from repeating his name, like a prayer.

* * *

She wakes up the next morning, the sheets tangled around her legs, and glares at the digital clock next to her bed.

It reads Thursday, December 6th. She blinks. That can't be right. It's not December 6th. Yesterday was Saturday, December 15th – the day she was supposed to get married. The day she – Oh, God. She sits up in her bed, panic seizing her body as it all comes back to her, the blood and the wreck and sirens and _Christian_, and she stares at the clock, confused still.

It wasn't all real. It couldn't have been real, not if it's still Thursday. She must have been dreaming. It must have all been a nightmare. Christian didn't die. Her best friend didn't die at the age of twenty-eight on her dammed wedding day.

Right?

She picks up her phone from her night stand, and her fingers work automatically, dialing a number she's known practically her whole life.

She swears she can hear a choir of angels singing hallelujah when she hears his voice, pissed off and groggy when he asks her, "What the hell do you want at this hour, Ana?"

And that's when she realizes it's still only 4:03 a.m.

She sheepishly asks him if he wants to grab breakfast before work, and though pissed as he is, he can never deny her much of anything so he answers a curt "yes" before hanging up on her.

When she sees him, she hugs him until he jokingly complains about not being able to breathe, and when he sits down and stares at the menu, pretending as if he's not going to order his usual of chocolate chip pancakes sprinkled with cinnamon, she can't quit staring at him because, holy crap, did that nightmare feel excruciatingly real.

She's not paying attention to anything he's saying, really, until he snaps at him, "Ana! Did you hear me?"

She shakes her head, trying and failing to look contrite, and giggles when he lets out an exasperated sigh.

"_I said," _he starts, his fingers uncharacteristically fiddling with the napkin he's been attacking for the past few minutes, "don't be mad but, I don't think I can't be in your wedding party. I have this merger I've been working on for a few months and it's just so close to being a done-deal so I really need to shift my focus on to that. And, I mean, I'm not even that close with Jose or anything so being on his best men just feels weird…"

"Be my maid of honor then." She interjects, and she can't help but notice that he looks more sad than nervous about telling her.

"Well, there are two problems with your solution," he says, his deep voice light, "a) I would look awful in a dress and b) Kate and Mia are already dueling it out for that position. It's a bloody battle, and one that I'm not willing to get in the middle of."

She laughs and tells him that between the three of them, she has no doubt that he'd win and he laughs it off, but she still can't shake the feeling that something's off with him.

Or maybe something's off with her.

Or maybe it's just the stupid nightmare still hanging heavy in her mind.

* * *

She hears her alarm sound loudly in her ears at an hour too early for her body to wake, and with her eyes still screwed tightly shut, leans over to her side table to find the annoying device and throw it across her room.

Except, she doesn't find the annoying device on her side table. In fact, when she opens her eyes, she realizes she's not even in hers and Kate's apartment.

She's in Jose's loft and his body is soft and warm against hers as she turns to face him, and she starts to wonder if she's been perpetually drunk for the past few weeks because _nothing_ is piecing together anymore.

He tells her good morning before leaning over to kiss her softly, taking her hand in his, and her eyes are trained on nothing but the wedding band on her finger. How did that get there? And what is she doing here?

Her throat starts to constrict a little as the panic rises in her body, and she shifts away from her fiancé … er, husband, and asks him, "What's todays date – and, year?"

Jose sighs, and a morose expression fills his face. He looks as if his patience is beginning to wear paper thin when he says, "It's March 4th, 2013 babe. Do you think you'll go into work today? It's been a while since you took a trip to the office."

And she can't wrap her head around any of this – the date, the wedding bands, the husband.

Jose rubs her arm, his expression still on the brink desperation, "You know, you could go see the psychologist. It's been a while since you've gone to see him, too. Mia's been going almost every week since Christian…"

He lets the sentence hang in the air, and she needs him to continue. "Since Christian … what?"

Any semblance of annoyance slips from Jose's face, replaced by worry and despondency. "Since Christian died, honey."

Jose heads out to work only thirty minutes later, but instead of taking his advice and visiting the psychologist she apparently sees now, some charlatan named Flynn, she ends up at the house that's held the majority of her childhood memories; Christian's parent's home.

They look a little confused to see her, but she doesn't bother to ask why and all she can think is how much older and worn out his parents look.

"It never gets easier, does it?" Grace says to her when she hands her a steaming cup of hot chocolate, with two packets of mix – Christian's secret recipe. "You think it's starting to… but it doesn't."

Her already shaky motor skills have seemed to abandoned her and she figures it has to do something with the fact that she's pretty sure she'll just dissolve into a never ending stream of tears if she even tries, so she just nods and sips the warm drink in hand, burning her throat as the thick liquid makes its way down her throat.

"But you made him happier than anyone else – since the day we got him. Before Mia, you were the only one who could get a smile out of him." Carrick adds a moment later, "We always thought you two would end up together, with all that bickering you two did like an old couple, but I guess everything happens for a reason."

Ana nods because a long time ago, she thought that too. But he didn't – he "couldn't", he had said, was "physically impossible" of it. And she forced herself to stop thinking it too.

"But you made him happy, that you did." The Grace said, "and he loved you for it."

* * *

She wakes up the next morning after a thoroughly trying day, and this time, she's not even entirely surprised when she finds herself back in her own bed. She searches for her alarm clock, and finds it just where she left it – on her bed stand.

The green numbers tell her that it's December 14th, and she can't really tell if she's dreaming anymore or what. But she's glad for the date, anyway, because even if this isn't a dream, and even if she's stuck in some sort of parallel universe where the calendar can't seem to work correctly, at least Christian's still alive today and she still has a day to figure out what the heck is going on.

She spends the majority of her day on the couch when watching _The Butterfly Effect_ turns into a full on movies-about-time-travel marathon. She gets through _Back to the Future_ and _The Time Traveler's Wife_ before about a hundred theories begin to loom in her mind, and she decides to give up and just call Christian.

He asks her if she's excited for the bachelorette party, and she realizes that she had in fact forgotten all about it.

She then asks him if he's excited to go to the bachelor party because at least Elliot will be there and he says no because as it turns out, the merger is taking longer than he thought and he'll be working late tonight. He tells her he has to go a few minutes later, and before he can hang up, she asks him if he's okay because he sounds awfully unlike himself on the phone. He sounds distant in a way she doesn't really know him to be anymore – at least not with her – and it makes her distinctly uncomfortable.

She can hear the slight smile in his voice as he tells her he's fine, and she can just about imagine his legs kicked up on his immaculate desk at his home office, his fingers tiredly loosening the tie around his neck. "Just stressed," he explains.

The rest of her night isn't too eventful, not that she can remember most of it anyway courtesy of far too many shots as per Kate and Mia's nagging and the next morning, she groans as she realizes that it's December 15th, and she hasn't yet figured out a way to stop the car accident from happening … if it _is _still happening. She's not sure if this is like a second chance or something, and this time Christian _won't_ die on her wedding day.

But she can't help but take precautions anyway. So she requests for a Limo, despite the fact that she had vehemently protested against using one before, and hopes that the trained driver will do a better job of keeping Christian alive than Kate did. She thinks maybe she'll get married and go to Hawaii later tonight with her husband and Christian will be here, alive, and breathing.

But she blinks for just a second as the car waits at a stop sign, silently urging her brain to stop with all the pounding when she hears a loud crash and feels rather than hears the screeches of the break as the limo comes to a halt.

It happens all the same; Kate and Mia dial 9-1-1, except this time the only miniscule difference is that Kate and Mia are both in the back seat with her. And Ana is out of the car before she can even think about it, running over to where she _knows_ she'll find Christian.

She finds him as the wails and the sirens echo in her ears; the same unruly mess of beautiful hair, the same rugged tan skin, lying just fifteen feet from her. His shirt and suit are again streaked with red liquid and the large jagged chunk of glass is still thrust into his side, just as she remembered it.

She feels around for his pulse, and this time she swears it's gone before she can even get to him.

She feels bile rise up her throat, and shifts away from Christian's lifeless body as she pukes her guts out. She feels her legs giving out from under her a moment later, and this time, she welcomes the momentary blackness.

* * *

She wakes up to the sound of her phone ringing too close to her head and with bleary eyes, she reads Christian's name before pressing the small green button. He asks her how her vacation in Mexico went, and instead of answering, she responds with a question.

"What's the date, Christian?"

"November 17th …" he says, concerned laced in his voice. "Are you feeling okay, Ana?"

"Uh, yeah… yeah, I'll see you later." She tells him, and then she hangs up and calls Jose because she isn't sure if in this world … or dream, or whatever, whether or not Jose ended up proposing to her in Mexico like he had planned.

She gets her answer when she calls Jose a few moments later, and he greets her with a, "Hello, fiancé."

The rest of that conversation is awkward and she feels like she's absolutely losing her mind and from the tone of both Christian's and Jose's voices, she's pretty sure they're thinking the same thing.

When she sees Christian later at his club over plates of pasta and wine, she feels like she's experiencing déjà vu but then she thinks that's the incorrect term for what she's experiencing – déjà vu is to think a new experience is one you've already had. But this isn't a new experience. This is an old experience – sitting here at the restaurant the day after coming back from Mexico, with Christian, breaking her big news to him – she's actually done this before.

Which is probably why both her mind and her mouth are on autopilot as she tells him her big news – except this time, she's able to catch on to things that she somehow didn't notice before. Like the way his face drops, despite the smile plastered on to his face, and the way his voice sounds three octaves too high the way it gets when he's lying about something he truly cares about. His poker face has always sucked when it came to her.

When they're parting after lunch, she notices his eyes are glazed the way they get when he's switching his feeling off, when he tells her how happy he is for her and he hugs her, too quickly, before he leaves – leaving her more confused than she's felt in the past few days.

And that, truly, is saying something.

* * *

She rolls over to her side and checks her alarm clock before her brain even has the time to figure out that she's awake.

December 15th. Her wedding day.

She pulls the sheets off of her and dials the all too familiar number, her veins already freezing with fear because she can't watch him die again. _She can't._

"You can't come to the wedding, Christian." She says before he's even said hello, and he sounds more than a little hurt when he asks her "why the hell not?"

"Because," she says, and then she stops, rubbing her hand over her face furiously. How does she explain this without sounding absolutely nuts? "Because, something bad is going to happen and I can't – I can't let it happen so I need you to stay home. Just stay in bed, watch a freaking movie. Something. Just don't come to my wedding."

"What the hell's going on, Ana?" he asks her, "_What's_ going to happen?"

She can hear her labored breathing in her own ears, "you're going to die, Christian."

"Oh?" he asks in an amused voice and she can tell he doesn't believe her. "And you know this because you're suddenly Nostradamus and can prophesize the future?"

"Christian," She snaps, because how can he be laughing about this? "This isn't funny, okay. Just stay home, please."

But of course, he doesn't. And she knows he won't because he's tenacious and stubborn to a fault, so she drives this time, her dressing enveloping almost all of her as she squishes in the driver seat, pushing Kate into the backseat. And this time, she swears she won't even blink. She won't even close her eyes for a fraction of a second, because this can't happen again. She _has_ to stop it from happening.

But it does, and it's the damned sirens and the wailing and the jagged pieces of glass and blood – blood, everywhere – again.

Everything is the same, except she thinks somehow he manages to hold on for a little longer. She thinks she can feel Christian's fading pulse under her fingers for a moment longer than last time.

But it disappears eventually, all the same, and like all the times before, she pukes and she pukes until she's empty from the inside, and then she collapses.

She's starting to wonder if she'll get concussions from all this time-travelling.

* * *

When she wakes up the next day, it's too bright in the room and the bed she's on is too comfortable to be her own. She opens her eyes wearily, unsure of where she'll be this time.

She's in Mexico. It's the hotel room her and Jose had stayed at in November, and when she looks to her phone for the date, she realizes that it's the day Jose proposed to her.

Except, she doesn't think he's really in the mood for accepting any proposals today.

No, she kind of just feels like she's been run over by a truck. Repeatedly. And she knows she won't be able to give Jose the kind of acceptance she knows he's looking for her. The kind of acceptance she gave .. today, before?

So instead, she just pushes her head further into her pillow and tells Jose she's feeling too ill to move when he comes out of the shower a few minutes later. And she wonders if it'll make a difference of any sort in the future. Or the present. Or, whenever.

She doesn't even know anymore.

* * *

The ringing of her cell phone wakes her up the next day and when she hears Christian's voice in her ear, she thinks she must be back in November now because she knows what's coming; she's already done this before (technically twice, now), right?

So she meets Christian for lunch at his club and she tells him her big news – which she's vaguely surprised she still has because she thought that maybe by avoiding the proposal yesterday or … a few days ago … she wouldn't be engaged right now. But she is, and she tells him, and she notices again the way his face falls and the way his voice is too high.

But now she's starting to see a pattern – and she doesn't know how she didn't see all this before. Buts she decides to be honest with him, about her feelings, because she's thinking maybe that's why all of this is happening.

"I don't know if I want do this, though …" she tells Christian reluctantly, and he stares at her, his eyes wide.

"What do you mean?"

"Marrying Jose … it seemed like the thing to do, you know? We've been together for so long and it seemed like the obvious next step but …" she pauses, and she looks at Christian, willing him to understand what she's trying to say without her having to really say it. "I'm not sure if he's _the one_, you know?"

Christian nods and takes her hand in his, "Look, I know I didn't always like Rodriguez, but …" he shrugs, and she can tell the words on the tip of his tongue aren't ones he really wants to say, "but he's proved that he loves you. And I trust him now. I think you're just nervous."

And she knows he didn't get what she was trying to say. And she knows she'll have to do this all over again soon enough.

* * *

The sun filters through her curtains, casting a bright glow in her room that wakes her from deep slumber. She rolls over and glances at the green numbers on her clock. It's December 3rd, and for the first time, the date doesn't stick out to her as significantly important. In fact, she can't even remember what she did on December 2nd.

So she calls Christian over, because she's got this idea in her mind and she really needs to figure out if it'll work or not.

He shows up to her apartment an hour later, coffee in hand, and then she sits down and tells him that he's going to need to take a seat too because this simply isn't the kind of news you give to people when they're up right.

"I think I'm time-travelling." She says, without preamble, and Christian almost snorts coffee through his nose.

"I'm sorry, what?"

She takes a deep breathe, "I'm time-travelling. Yesterday was November – I think 17th, and the day before that I was in Mexico, and before that it was my wedding which isn't until the 15th of _this_ month, and I can't really keep track of what came before that but today is December 3rd, and all I know is that these days aren't going in consecutive order – or any sort of order, really."

She stops to gauge his expression, and he's just staring at her like she's grown a third eye or something, so she continues to try and explain.

"I mean, at first I didn't know what was happening but I think I'm starting to get it now. I think I have to do some things correctly first, in order to stop something really, _really_ bad from happening and –"

"Have you been watching the Discovery Channel again before you go to bed?"

She doesn't answer his question, but instead hands him an envelope. "Inside, there's a note with little things that I know will happen for the next few weeks until the 15th. Just keep this with you, wherever you go, and give it to me when I ask, okay?"

He nods, though he's still regarding her with a strange expression, and then tells her he should head out because he's grabbing brunch with Elena.

"With Elena?" She all but explodes, and she's not even sure why. She's never liked Elena, but has never really been able to stop him from seeing her before; she's not even sure it's bothered her before the way it is now.

He shrugs in response and heads towards the door.

"Are you guys like …" she pauses, because despite the fact that she's somewhat aware of the _nature_ of their relationship, they never out rightly talk about it, "hanging out now?"

She's both baffled and ashamed of the jealousy that she can feel on her tongue.

"I'm not sure that's any of your business, Ana." He shoots out defensively before telling her goodbye and she almost wants to follow him out and apologize for her weird behavior.

But she doesn't, because she's got all these feelings suddenly, and she doesn't know what to do with them anymore.

* * *

December 15th. The numbers on her clock glare at her mockingly, and she groans in frustration because she can't live December 15th again, yet. She needs to go back, she needs to change things before she can live this day again.

But she can't, really, so she climbs out of bed and puts on her beautiful white dress that's still clean, knowing it'll be streaked with blood in just an hour.

Resigned, she doesn't even bother to drive this time, and sits solemnly in the back seat, her limbs already fidgeting with fear for what she'll be witnessing soon.

She feels her body launch forward as Kate slams on the break, and she sprints out of the car before Kate and Mia even have time to pull their phones out of their pockets. The loud hums of the sirens resonate through her body as she passes the upturned SUV and pushes herself to fasten her pace. She can vaguely hear Mia's cries in the background.

When she reaches Christian's body this time, his eyes are still open, blinking, and he's still conscious and she thinks that maybe even though she can't stop the crash from happening, she can stop him from dying. So she screams and screams for the EMTs to come help her, and she can feel his pulse steady under her fingers as they lift him up onto a stretcher, and as she pushes herself onto the ambulance with him, and it's steady for a few more minutes until, it's not.

The slow beating disappears from under the pad of her thumb, and she tells him she loves him as she hears the EMT call his time of death.

And she means it; she loves him. Not just as her oldest friend, or her closest friend, but she _loves_ him. And saying the words out loud feel like a home-coming. Like the feelings she's had since forever are finally making sense to her.

Vaguely, she remembers the note and with shaking hands she fishes through his suit pockets, her breath hitching in her throat when she finds the crumpled envelope.

And despite the fact that she's hovering over her dead best friends body, she feels hope rise within her because she's starting to follow the right path of dates and because she's finally starting to understand; she knows exactly what she needs to do. She just needs to get to the right day now, somehow.

* * *

She wonders if the universe is playing a joke on her when she wakes up the next day, and it's November 16th. She doesn't even remember what she did on November 16th, but she knows that she desperately needs it to be the 17th of December.

She calls Christian and asks him to come over, but he swears to her that he can't get out of work, but he'll try to stop over later. She then asks him if he has an envelope in his pockets, and she's shocked when he says that he does.

"Do you know why it's there …?" she asks him carefully, unsure of his answer.

"Yes, Ana. Because you think your time-travelling." He says amusedly, and she's already back to the Discovery Channel and Google before she can even hang up because she has to figure out what this all means.

And after hours of research, she still has pretty much nothing. Does time work linearly or circularly? She can't even begin to fathom it all.

She goes to sleep early, leaving everything unresolved because, _God damn_, her brain didn't feel this exhausted even when she was taking finals in college.

When she wakes up, she almost does a victory dance in her bed because it's _December 17th_! But she chooses to shower instead because she can't really remember when she did that last.

She gets the call from Christian as soon as she steps out, and she tells him she'd rather see him for breakfast than lunch because she's just plain antsy at this point. When she sees him, she can't help but hug him tightly to her because technically, the last time she saw him, he was dead.

This time as she downs her tea and pancakes, she doesn't even bother mentioning the fact that she's now engaged.

Instead, she finds herself blubbering out a mess of words that are making so much sense in her head but practically none as she says them out loud.

"Me and Jose – I just, I don't know that … it's just not" she tries, and he stares at him with concerned eyes, his pancakes left untouched. "It's just not going to work out."

She thinks she'll just leave it at that, and maybe somehow he'll understand why on his own and she'll be able to save herself from the embarrassment but then he asks her "why not?" and she doesn't know how to put it into words.

"Because – because of _you._ I mean, I don't know how I didn't see this earlier or figure it out sooner or whatever but … I mean you …"

And this time, when she doesn't finish, he _does_ understand and his eyes look like two tiny saucers on his face.

He shakes his head slowly, "Ana … you don't mean that. You're just, you're confused …"

"But I'm not." She interjects, and her voice is as firm as she'd imagined it to be. "I'm not. I love you, Christian."

And instead of saying something, _anything_, he just stares at her, a million conflicting emotions playing in his eyes.

His cell phone rings at the same time he opens his mouth to say something, and he looks relieved but sad all at the same time.

"Look, I need to take this. We'll uh, we'll take about this later, okay?" he says, and then he leaves and her frustration is beginning to bubble over because she knows she's failed, and this won't change December 15th.

* * *

When she wakes up, her limbs feel cramped and her comforter smells like mothballs. It takes her approximately two seconds to realize that she's in her childhood bedroom.

She pulls the covers from over her hastily, wondering if she's back to being a child, physically, as well, and is relieved to find that she isn't. Instead, she's still her, just dressed in jeans and a sweater. She feels something digging into her leg, and she checks her pockets to find her cell phone.

The instant she sees that it's December 21st, panic seizes her and she dials Christian's number.

She gets to voicemail almost instantly, and she climbs out of the bed that's too small for her to stumble down the stairs and into her kitchen. She finds her mom, Ray, Bob and Jose, all dressed in black, solemn expression covering their faces.

Her mom comes to her first as she just stares at them, trying to figure all of this out in her head. "Honey, you should probably get dressed – we don't want to be late."

She holds up her phone in explanation as she says, "Mom, Christian's not picking up… he's not—"

Her mother dissolves into tears before she can finish her sentence, and she gets the feeling that she's about to heave up her insides in just a matter of seconds. "Oh, Ana. Christian's … the funeral. His funeral's today, sweetie. You should go get ready."

She moves almost robotically, and Jose follows her up the stairs and helps her get dressed. She assumes he's her husband now; the rock on her finger tells her as much.

She doesn't cry when she sees the casket. And she doesn't cry as everyone gives speeches about him. And she doesn't cry as they lower his body into the ground. Because he's not dead. _He's not dead_. She can fix this. She has to fix this.

So she doesn't cry, but she does puke. And she feels Kate and Ethan lifting her from the ground, which confuses her because she doesn't remember falling in the first place, and then she goes to the backseat of the car – the backseat where she first saw all of it happen – and she goes to sleep.

* * *

The alarm buzzes in her ear and she grabs the damn thing, only glancing at the numbers before throwing it across the room.

December 15th.

She's exhausted. Mentally, physically, she's exhausted and she doesn't think even getting out of bed today is manageable.

But she does. She does, and instead of the dress that's hanging in her closet she puts on her sweatpants and sweatshirt from her alma mater and walks the short distance to Escala.

She thumbs in the code in the elevator and walks straight to his room to find him in a towel, his hair still wet from his shower, his eyes quite literally bulging out.

"What the hell are you doing here? You're getting married in," he looks down to the watch on his wrist, his voice edging on frantic, "In one freaking hour!"

"I know – I know but I sort of … can't."

And when she says that, she thinks his eyes might actually pop out of their sockets. "What does that even mean, Ana?"

"Come get breakfast with me and I'll explain?" She offers, and after a little bit of coaxing, they're sitting at a restaurant.

"Do you still have the envelope?" She asks him, not even remotely sure of what to expect, and he pulls it out of his wallet.

"Okay," she says, "and you remember why –"

"Yes, the freaking time-travelling thing, yes. I remember. But a) that still doesn't make _any_ sense to me and b) what does this have to do with you getting married?"

"It'll all make sense just … just give me a second. Do you –"she swallows, almost scared to ask her question. "Do you remember what I told you when I came back from Mexico?"

"Yeah, that Jose somehow manned up enough to ask you to marry him." He says with a grin, and she curses loudly because, _shit,_ he doesn't remember. He doesn't remember her telling him she loves him. It didn't go in order. That day disappeared, or something and now … now she doesn't know what to do.

"Ana, you're starting to scare me. What. Is. Going. On?" He asks her in a hard voice that would frighten just about anyone.

She sighs, "Remember I told you something bad happens –"

"Yes, I die."

_Oh. _Well, he remembers that. "Yes, and – and I have to stop it but," her voice is starting to waver, and she runs her hands through her hair, frustrated. "I don't know how to stop it. I don't know how to keep you from dying."

Christian pulls his chair around, the metal screeching loudly against the ceramic tiles, and sits down closer to her, his arm wrapping around her torso. "Look, I can't pretend to even understand what's going on, but … but maybe, maybe you have to let whatever is going to happen, happen. Maybe you have to let me die in order to stop .. time-travelling."

She pulls back from him abruptly, like she's been burned. "What the hell do you mean?"

"Ana, you can't keep living like this. You've been going crazy these last few days," he says, and she wants to laugh and cry simultaneously because he doesn't even know the half of it. "But maybe that's what's supposed to happen, and you have to let it and then move on."

"How the hell are you so okay with dying?" She asks, standing up. She really does not want to have this conversation right now.

"I'm _not_. But you can't keep doing this, Ana. You are going crazy. You have to –"

She leaves the restaurant before he can tell her once more that she should just let him die, and doesn't wait too long before jumping into her bed. She's too tired to care that it's still only nine in the morning.

She doesn't know when she falls asleep, but she wakes up to the sound of her cell phone ringer.

It's Kate's voice on the other line, shaking and quivering, and she can hear the sirens and wails from Mia that she recognizes all too well now, and her stomach plummets before Kate even says anything.

"There was an accident, Ana … Christian, Christian's car got hit really hard. He's… He's dead."

And she just hangs up without saying a word, rolls over in bed and falls back asleep.

* * *

Her body hurts. Her entire body aches and moans with pain as she tries to lift herself from her bed, and glance at her clock.

It's December 17th.

Her conversation with Christian is still too fresh in her mind, and she's still really freaking pissed at him for caring so little for his life, but she picks up anyway when he calls, oblivious to her rage, and she goes to meet him for lunch.

She's starting to get real sick of the pasta and wine combination but orders it anyway, and listens to Christian as he tells her about his day.

She stops him in the middle of a rant, and takes his hand across the table. She can tell he's confused, but he doesn't say anything and she takes it as her cue to start the spiel he's been working on all morning. This _has_ to work. She _has _to make him believe her.

"Look, Christian, I need to tell you something. And it's really, really important that you listen and that you believe me, because … it's just, I _need_ you to believe me, okay?"

She looks at him for affirmation, and he nods, grasping her fingers a little tighter around his.

"I love you, Christian. And I know that you're not going to believe me, because… because of Jose, and because we've been best friends since we could talk, and because I've never said about it for so long but I ... I think I always have. I just never understood it before; and even when in those short bursts of time when I did understand it, I just never said anything because you were so adamant about not being in relationships that I thought I would just be ruining our friendship, but you know, that whole thing about how you don't know what you have till it's gone? Well it's true, okay. It's true because when I lost you … I didn't think it was possible to hurt that much. But it is, because I love you."

"You never lost me, Ana. I've been here. I'm always here." He says, and she's glad he's not looking at her like she's a lunatic… exactly.

"I did, I might already have and it made me realize… everything. It made me realize, I'm not _supposed_ to marry Jose. I'm supposed to be with you and you are supposed to be with me, and I need you to believe me on that. Please, tell me you believe me?"

Her heart pounds uncomfortably in her chest and she gnaws on her lip in a nervous manner. Her eyes are trained on his, and when he nods, an almost infinitesimal movement of his head, before dragging her lip out of the cages of her teeth with his deft fingers, she thinks her heart might just leap out of her chest.

"I believe you, Ana."

* * *

She wakes up the next morning, her chest a thousand times lighter than it's been for days now it seems.

But the feeling doesn't last too long, as she realizes the date; December 14th. It's the day before she's supposed to be getting married, the day before Christian dies. But she's not sure if any of that is still happening. She'd made him believe last night; she'd changed the course of her fate. But had it been enough?

She doesn't call anyone, too afraid to find out the answer, and spends the day reading and watching TV and doing things she normally does because she's missed all that – being normal. She figures, if the bachelorette party is on, she'll get a call from Kate or Mia sooner or later.

And she does; around 9 pm, Kate calls, and the first thing she says is, "Since tonight was supposed to be your bachelorette party and all, I vote we get shit-faced tonight." And Ana can't agree more, especially considering that it was _supposed _to be her bachelorette party.

She doesn't really keep track of how many shots she downs, and she ends up calling Christian around 1 in the morning because if, despite all of her efforts and hard-work, he's going to die tomorrow, then she wants to see him tonight.

She comes to meet him at the lobby of her apartment, and he kind of just stumbles behind her as she leads him up the stairs.

He meets her outside of the club within twenty minutes of her call, and she can't remember much other than the intoxicating feeling of being in such close parameters of him – the feeling only infinitely more intense as they climb out of the car and into the elevator.

He lets her borrow a shirt and it's not until their lying on his couch, watching a recording of SNL when she grabs his hand and pulls him close to her.

"I love you, Christian." She tells him, her words only partially slurred.

"I know."

"Do you believe me?" She asks, because she needs to know. She needs to know if it'll make a difference tomorrow.

"I'm working on it," he says.

"Okay. Because I love you." She says, and this time her words are definitely slurred.

"And, I love you, Anastasia." He says, effectively shutting her up by bringing his lips to hers, his hands sliding under her shirt.

* * *

She has a headache building near her temples before she even opens her eyes, and she looks around the room to realize it's not hers.

She blinks a few times, the brightness of her surroundings only making the pounding in her head worse. She's in Christian's bed, she realizes, but he's not in it with her, and his side of the bed is cold.

She checks the side table for her phone, and her eyes immediately fly to the date. December 15th.

Before she can even figure out whether or not she's getting married today, she spots Christian coming into the room, his wet hair tousled beautifully, his pajama's hanging gloriously low on his waist, and a mug of tea in his hand.

He leans over her and puts the mug on the side table closer to her before kissing her and snuggling in under the covers, closer to her.

"I had the wildest dream last night. I dreamt that you were still getting married to Jose, and that I got into a car accident outside of the church and died." He says.

_**End.**_

* * *

**a/n: time travel and 50 shades - i know, who would've thought? my brain does weird things sometimes. hope you all liked it, and if you're still confused, don't be afraid to ask questions! also i apologize for all spelling/grammar problems - i wrote this too fast, my brain couldn't catch up. **


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